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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Water
Sec. Water and Human Systems
Volume 5 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2023.1305373
This article is part of the Research Topic

Understanding Water - Energy - Food - Ecosystem Nexus: from modelling to action

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A geospatial web-based integrative analytical tool for the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus: The iWEF 1.0

Cuthbert Taguta1* Luxon Nhamo1, 2* Zolo S. Kiala1, 3 Tsitsi Bangira4 Tinashe L. Dirwai3 Aidan Senzanje1 Hodson Makurira5 Graham Jewitt6 Sylvester Mpandeli7 Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi3
  • 1School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • 2Water Research Commission, South Africa
  • 3International Water Management Institute (South Africa), South Africa
  • 4College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • 5University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
  • 6IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Netherlands
  • 7Water Research Commission of South Africa, South Africa

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The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has evolved into an important transformative approach for facilitating the timely identification of trade-offs and synergies between interlinked sectors for informed intervention and decision-making. However, there is a growing need for a WEF nexus tool to support decision-making on integrated resources management towards sustainable development. This study developed a geospatial web-based integrative analytical tool for the WEF nexus (the iWEF) to support integrated assessment of WEF resources to support resilience building and adaptation initiatives and strategies. The tool uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to establish numerical correlations among WEF nexus indicators and pillars, mainly availability, productivity, accessibility, and sufficiency. The tool was calibrated and validated with existing tools and data at varying spatio-temporal scales. The results indicate the applicability of the tool at any spatial scale, highlighting the moderate sustainability in the management of WEF resources at various scales. The developed iWEF tool has improved the existing integrative WEF nexus analytical tool in terms of processing time and providing geospatial capabilities. The iWEF tool is a digital platform that automatically guides policy and decision-making in managing risk from trade-offs and enhancing synergies holistically. It is developed to support policy and decision-making on timely interventions in priority areas that could be showing signs of stress.

Keywords: resilience building, modelling, spatial analysis, Sustainable develoment, resource management

Received: 01 Oct 2023; Accepted: 23 Nov 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 Taguta, Nhamo, Kiala, Bangira, Dirwai, Senzanje, Makurira, Jewitt, Mpandeli and Mabhaudhi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Mr. Cuthbert Taguta, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, 3209, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Dr. Luxon Nhamo, Water Research Commission, Pretoria, South Africa